The Filmmaker Behind ‘The Tale’ Explains What We Don’t Understand About Sexual-Abuse Survivors

In January at the Sundance Film Festival, Fox unveiled the result of that inner exploration. The Tale is a remarkable drama starring Laura Dern as Jennifer Fox, a successful documentarian who receives an anxious phone call from her mother (Ellen Burstyn), who discovers a short story her daughter wrote as a 13-year-old about having an affair with an older man, Bill (Jason Ritter). Jennifer hasn’t thought about the affair in years, but she’s compelled to reexamine that time in her life, having conversations with her younger self (Isabelle Nélisse), who we see in flashbacks as she enters into the relationship. In The Tale, Fox’s present and past selves are engaged in a debate about what this sexual assault meant and how it affected her for years to come.